When should we die?

Sunset from 9-mile beach, Western Australia. Seems appropriate to the subject!

This doesn't sound like a very cheerful 

subject, and I guess it isn't, really. But it's easier to get through life if we face the problems that it throws at us, and look for practical solutions. This is not an attitude that our (western) societies are good at; we'd much rather - generally - duck tough issues and hope they'll go away. Or we take refuge in platitudes and spout half-understood aphorisms that allow us to pretend we have a solution. So I thought it might be interesting to look at the problem of how we, and our society, approach the last days of our lives.

The stimulus for this particular polemic was a conversation with a friend of mine, whose mother-in-law is dying. She's an old lady, with dementia, can't look after herself and has largely lost control of her bodily functions. She now has an ugly infection in one of her eyes. It can't be treated, and the doctors are concerned, apparently, that the infection will spread down an optic nerve into her brain and kill her. The only possible treatment would be to remove the eye.  But why would you do that? What good could it do? The doctors are hamstrung by legal requirements to preserve life, and it seems that's what they have to 'officially' recommend.  No-one wants to make the obvious decision, which must be to do whatever is necessary to ensure she is as comfortable and free of pain as possible, which is likely to involve, as I understand it, large doses of morphine or some similar drug, but take no positive, 'heroic' and expensive action. If the morphine doses are sufficient to 'snuff out the flickering flame of life', well, so be it. The result will be better for all concerned, not least for the old lady lying there in a painful, confused and hopeless little heap.

This discussion is, of course, a 'sub-set' of the arguments about euthanasia which, being an active process, has all sorts of additional complications. We won't go there - at least not this time. My argument is simply that, for all of us, there is a time to die, and nothing is gained by postponing it for a while at the cost of pain, indignity, inconvenience, unpleasant work for all those who have to look after the dying, and the expenditure of ridiculous quantities of material resources - as well as occupation of hospital beds that could be better used by others. There are numerous tales similar to the one I have told here, about people dying of cancer, who go through round after round of unpleasant, inconvenient treatment, often with unpleasant side effects, to (possibly) prolong life for a few months. Why do they do it?

The answer, I suggest, is because that's what's expected. We rush for treatment, and once we're in the hands of the hospitals we tend to lose control of the process.

Underlying all this is the idea that human life is somehow invaluable. This is quite frequently asserted as if it was completely inarguable. It derives, I believe, from the underlying fear we all have of dying, so we argue that every life - which of course includes ours - must be preserved as long as possible, whatever the cost. This has been developed into doctrine by Christianity and permeates western societies. Well, I think it's a stupid assertion/doctrine/position, which can and should be qualified. When the time comes to die, it would be good to accept the fact and do it well.

Autumn at Withycombe - colour at the end of the line

 

  P.S. Two posts today do not indicate a rush of creativity (if that's the right word); just that I had them done and got around to posting them - it's been raining all day.